COMPOSERS: Volans
LABELS: Chandos New Direction
WORKS: This is How it is; Walking Song; Leaping Dance; Concerto for piano and wind instruments; Untitled (in memoriam GHV)
PERFORMER: Peter Donohoe, Kevin Volans (piano); Netherlands Wind Ensemble/Daniel Harding, Wim Steinmann
CATALOGUE NO: CHAN 9563 Reissue (1997)
The most substantial work here is the rather Stravinskian Piano Concerto, written for the 1995 Proms; the origins of most of the others date farther back in Kevin Volans’s career. This is How it is reworks material from the wonderfully elusive Rimbaud opera The Man with Footsoles of Wind; Leaping Dance is an arrangement of a two-piano work from 1984, when Volans was still exploring the compositional techniques of African music, and Untitled, with a solo piano shadowed by an off-stage wind ensemble, is taken from a dance piece. It’s a fascinating collection, and a fine introduction to one of the most original compositional voices of our time. Andrew Clements
Volans: This is How it is; Walking Song; Leaping Dance; Concerto for piano and wind instruments; Untitled (in memoriam GHV)
The most substantial work here is the rather Stravinskian Piano Concerto, written for the 1995 Proms; the origins of most of the others date farther back in Kevin Volans’s career. This is How it is reworks material from the wonderfully elusive Rimbaud opera The Man with Footsoles of Wind; Leaping Dance is an arrangement of a two-piano work from 1984, when Volans was still exploring the compositional techniques of African music, and Untitled, with a solo piano shadowed by an off-stage wind ensemble, is taken from a dance piece.
Our rating
5
Published: January 20, 2012 at 1:17 pm